The present disclosure relates to an image forming apparatus that has a normal mode and an energy-saving mode and that includes a monitor which monitors the state of the apparatus in the energy-saving mode.
An image forming apparatus such as a multifunction peripheral, a copier, a printer, or a facsimile machine has a normal mode and an energy-saving mode. The normal mode is a mode in which a job-executable state is maintained. The energy-saving mode is a mode in which the supply of electric power to some components is stopped to save electric power. There are known technologies, of which one example will be discussed below, for eliminating inconveniences encountered in a state where an image forming apparatus has made a transition to energy-saving mode.
Specifically, there is known a printing apparatus that counts, as conditions for transition to energy-saving mode, not only predetermined conditions for transition to energy-saving mode but also the fact that the printing apparatus is in a printing-enabled state so as to inhibit transition to energy-saving mode when printing is impossible. In this printing apparatus, a state with no abnormality (a printing-enabled state) is taken as a necessary condition for transition to energy-saving mode. This eliminates the need for various kinds of control (as for monitoring the duration of the printing-disabled state and for indicating a printing-disabled state in energy-saving mode) related to the energy-saving mode in a printing-disabled state. This helps simplify the control of the apparatus.
An image forming apparatus such as a multifunction peripheral, a copier, a printer, or a facsimile machine has a normal mode and an energy-saving mode in which less electric power is consumed than in the normal mode. The energy-saving mode is also called power-saving mode or sleep mode. When not in use (not executing any job, on standby), the image forming apparatus is left in energy-saving mode. This helps reduce the electric power consumed by the image forming apparatus.
In energy-saving mode, the supply of electric power to such parts of the image forming apparatus as a scanner, a printing engine, and a display panel for setting is stopped. The scanner reads a document to generate image data. The printing engine executes printing. In energy-saving mode, when a recovery factor, such as receipt of print data from a computer, occurs, the supply of electric power to those parts to which the supply of electric power has been stopped is restarted. Then, the image forming apparatus returns to normal mode (job-executable state).
Here, during transition to energy-saving mode, previously defined energy-saving mode transition processing is executed sequentially. During the transition period to energy-saving mode (during transition from normal mode to energy-saving mode), an error may occur.